Word vomit occasionally sprinkled with nuggets of wisdom.

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I feel like I haven’t even touched my camera in forever. I’ve been in a bit of a rut. I’m frustrated with both of my jobs for various reasons and yet, as you might imagine, there aren’t a lot of other options floating around for employment.

I’ve been working both of these jobs now for a year and though my schedule has adjusted a little bit–I do now have two full, consecutive days off, the outline essentially remains the same. I work about 45 hours a week. Two of those days are doubles where I start work at 7.30 am and finish between 9 and 10.30 pm depending on the day with two hours off in between shifts, about 45 minutes of which is eaten up with travel time between job one and job two. I am lucky to live above one of my jobs, which means that I do get some home time in between shifts on those double days. Still, it’s certainly no picnic. And after a year, it has definitely gotten old.

But, here I am. The economy in the shitter and I want a different job. I do feel fortunate to HAVE two jobs currently and so have the luxury of not feeling rushed or pressed into taking any job I can get but I’m starting to feel as if I’d rather not have a job because of the level of stress and frustration that I experience from the two jobs I have.

I’ve been here before–trapped into something that I have little option out of except in the distant future. Before, it was living in Maine. The only difference there is that I was less stressed about work and more financialy secure than I am now.

Anyway. That’s part of the reason that I haven’t been posting photos: I haven’t been taking any to post.

Ruts are no fun to be in and having an argument on Valentine’s Day with your Man doesn’t help either. Not that I had big heart-and-cupid dreams about Valentine’s Day but arguments are no fun no matter what day they’re on. Not that it was really that much of an argument. It was more of a snap from me asking rather forcefully and loudly if we could please change the subject as four of us walked across the Hawthorne Bridge last night. Admitedly, it was not the most constructive way for me to express my discomfort with the topic at hand but the Man basically didn’t talk to me for the rest of the night and when I opted to leave the theatre at intermission, because I was suddenly exhausted and have a long day at work today, he felt it was better for me to go back to my place rather than to his and wait for him to come home. Which is fair since we hadn’t really had the chance to discuss what had happened and why I was frustrated and why he was frustrated. And more than likely, we wouldn’t have discussed it if I’d been asleep in his bed either. Still, it’s one of those things that has left a sour feeling in my stomach.

This relationship thing isn’t easy–I don’t think anyone ever promised that it would be–and this is certainly the longest relationship I’ve been involved in for quite a while. It’s challenging me an awful lot to grow and to let down barriers and to learn to trust someone more than I probably ever have. All of these are good things. Still, my past experience has seen people walk away from things far less serious than this for far more stupid things. If he were the kind of person to do that, the Man would have walked away from this long ago for something more stupid than this and I don’t really feel like this is going to be something to break our relationship.

Hm. I should probably think about getting to work now even though my thoughts aren’t really finished on this.

I’ll get back to pictures soon. I don’t know if I’ll try to catch up or just pick up where I should be. I’m almost a week behind now and Tuesday will be the earliest that I have the chance to try to catch up. Maybe I’ll set myself a photo safari for Tuesday. Actually, there’s some interesting construction going on over by the Lloyd Center that I’ve been wanting to get shots of before it gets too far along. Maybe I’ll head over there Tuesday and see what my camera sees…

Another photo from the Arboretum today, though it’s something I’d more expect to see on the sidewalks of Portland, where there are these random rings. I read somewhere that they’re actually surviving horse tie rings though I’m not entirely sure how much I believe that. Still, people have taken to tying up toy horses to them, such as seen here.

I like the moss on the stone sides of the bench. The Arboretum, where the Man and I went for a hike today to visit the redwoods, is up in the West Hills. Higher elevation (500′ – 600′ or so) means that there’s snow whereas the valley floor, where the city is, doesn’t tend to get much.

Two of the best things about Portland are Washington Park, where the Arboretum is, and Forest Park, the largest urban wilderness in North America. They are next door to each other and offer lots of hiking possibilities. And they’re next door to downtown. It only took us 20 minutes to drive there but they are also accessible via public transit fairly easily, which is great for the carless such as myself.

I made steak and Guinness pie (remember that, Monkey? This is actually the first time I’ve made it since that time that you and Zoe had dinner with Carlos and me!) last night. This is what my kitchen looked like this morning. Not as terrible as after some other things that I’ve made but this was a pretty straightforward affair.

You may notice the empty ricotta cheese container. I had some leftover (I don’t even remember why I bought it originally…but the Man does: pizza) and I also had some leftover puff pastry so I mixed the ricotta with some maple syrup, brown sugar and cinnamon and made some puff pastries for desert. They weren’t too bad. I’d make it sweeter next time but for something that I whipped up in five minutes on a whim, I think it turned out okay.